National Screen Service 49/654.
The Blackfriars collection holds two iconic posters for Cecil B. DeMille’s 1949 Samson and Delilah which embody the allure of the film with its promise of sex (or at least sensuality) and violence. The star-studded cast included Hedy Lamarr as Delilah, Victor Mature as Samson, George Sanders as the Saran of Gaza, and Angela Landsbury as Samson’s fiancé Semadar. Lamarr, at the time one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, was a natural choice for Delilah, but Mature made for an odd Samson as he was terrified by virtually every element of the production from the live animals to the swords.
When Paramount Pictures balked at financing another “Sunday school tale,” DeMille showed them sketches of a lightly-clad Delilah, and the executives relented. Both posters feature Samson wooing the seductive Delilah, while the American version shows Samson fighting the lion and the French version centers on Samson’s destruction of the Philistine temple. The temple and its destruction cost over $150,000 and took nearly a year to construct and shoot.